


Uncle Steve's Shield

by untilweseeawingshot



Series: Baby Bea & [27]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America Shield - Freeform, Cute, F/M, I dont really know if this qualifies as angst, Just after the end of the movie, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sad, This one is a little sad, Tony stank - Freeform, uncle steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untilweseeawingshot/pseuds/untilweseeawingshot
Summary: Sometimes change isn't the easiest to explain to a child.





	Uncle Steve's Shield

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this series the Pepper/Tony break up mentioned in Civil War does not apply

“Dada! Dada!” Bea called out excitedly, running into the main room of the Avengers compound. “Ucl’ ‘Odey!” She squealed delightedly upon seeing Tony’s company and veering off to sit with her adoptive uncle once she gave Tony a quick greeting hug.

Pepper was hot on her heels, attempting to move quickly despite wearing her usual high heeled shoes.

“Why are little legs always so fast?” Pepper muttered as she slipped off the offending footwear and padded over to the couch where Tony was seated, with Rhodey (and now Bea) on the opposing one. “Hey guys, any news?”

“Nothing amazing.” Tony shook his head and gestured vaguely to the desk where he had abandoned Steve’s letter, Pepper got up to retrieve it and started to read it on her way back.

“ _He_ ,” Rhodey pointed to Tony. “Has a new name.”

“What?” Pepper asked as she sat back down, her attention now off the letter.

“The delivery guy said my name wrong. That’s all.” Tony tried to wave it off as nothing. “Nothing spectacular.”

“Tony Stank.” Rhodey stated.

Pepper laughed loudly, Bea looked between the three adults confused.

“Tony Stank. Head of Stank Industries.” Rhodey continued.

Pepper laughed more, Tony sulked and Bea wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

“Room with a view. Mr. Stank.” Rhodey continued again.

“Stop it!” Pepper managed through stifling her laughter. “I need to read this.”

“Okay, I’ll stop,” Rhodey held up his hands in surrender. “For now.”

While the adults chatted and Pepper was filled in on the details of what she and Bea had missed, Bea looked around the room, kicking her legs up and down on the couch. That was when she spotted it. Propped up against the wall in the far corner. Still the same but with five scratches in the paintwork. And its owner was nowhere in sight.

She crawled down from the couch while they were still talking and made her way over to the object of her quest. Once she reached it she sat herself down cross-legged in front of the shield and reached out to it, feeling at the scratches.

“Unc’ ‘Teve!” Bea called out.

Tony, Pepper and Rhodey abruptly stopped talking and turned to watch her.

“Unc’ ‘Teve!” She shouted louder than the first time, giggling afterwards. “Unc’ Teve!”

None of the three of them could bring themselves to stop her. Each had a few false starts but couldn’t make themselves get up from the couch.

Bea waited for a moment in silence, listening to hear the usual sounds to indicate someone somewhere else in the compound was making their way to the main room. When there was still no noise she raised the volume of her voice once again.

“UNC’ ‘TEVE!” She grinned and giggled a little more when her voice echoed.

Still no sounds, no noise at all apart from the breathing of the occupants of the room and what felt to them like a very heavy silence.

She stopped smiling. “Unc’ ‘Teve?” Her voice dropped back to its normal level and the insistence fell out of it too. “Unc’ Teve?” She asked again.

“Bea…” Pepper managed to whisper before she spoke up again.

“Unc’ ‘Teve?” This time her little voice was barely above a whisper itself. “Unc’ ‘Teve?” Her voice wobbled and she started to frown.

Tony and Pepper watched her sadly while Rhodey put his head in his hands.

This was going to be harder to explain than JARVIS.

She was almost in tears before they could bring themselves to stop her. Tony was the one who finally managed to push himself off the couch and move over to where the toddler sat.

“Dada. Where Unc’ ‘Teve?” She asked, looking up at him with a little hand rested on the shield as he stopped to stand beside her.

Tony ran a hand over his face and took in a deep breath through his nose, considering his words carefully as he bent and scooped her up. She leaned her head against his shoulder and clung to him tightly.

“Uncle Steve isn’t here at the moment princess…” He told her quietly.

Bea shook her head ‘no’ and pointed to the shield on the floor.

“I know his shield is here but he isn’t.” He tried to explain but he just didn’t know how.

“Den where?” She insisted.

“The truth is, I don’t know…” He shook his head too.

Bea just frowned and looked down to the floor.

“When back?” She looked up to him again after another few moments of silence.

“I’m sorry princess, I don’t know that either…”

“Why go?”

Tony sighed. It wasn’t the most simple of situations to explain, especially not to a three year old.

“It’s a complicated story to tell…” Tony began as he sat back down next to Pepper, placing Bea between them.

Bea watched him patiently, waiting for the story to begin.

“Some things happened that Uncle Steve and Uncle Clint and Aunt Nat…” He managed to stop himself from listing everyone. “The others didn’t agree with, they didn’t think it was right. So they fought against it. And because they fought against it they got into lots of trouble.” Tony sighed again. “That meant they couldn’t come back home once it was all over.”

“And unfortunately sweetheart they might not be able to come back for a long while.” Pepper added, squeezing Bea’s hand in her own.

Bea resumed looking at the floor and frowning.

“Bu’ dey be back?” She asked quietly.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, but I don’t know…” Tony told her, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms to stop himself from getting visibly upset in front of her.

Bea watched him with sad eyes before placing her other little hand on Tony’s side, drawing his attention to her and snuggling up to him.

“Erry’fing be okay Dada.”

Tony wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer. “I hope you’re right princess.”

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn’t done as a Team Iron Man piece it was just done as something I thought would be organic to the situation with this series.  
> I'm planning to take the series up to number 30, all of which spaces have been taken and written and should in the MCU timeline take us up to a few months after Spider-Man: Homecoming. But despite this, I have had ideas while I've been writing that don't fit with the time point I have already reached and needed to be set when Bea was younger so I have planned for a series of 'Outtakes', to be added to fill in different points of the series while we wait for more goodies from the MCU. They will be added into a fic as such entitled which will take place as number 31 but each individual prompt or idea will have its own individual chapter and Bea can be any age in them!  
> TL DR: So if you have any burning requests for this series which can be set before Homecoming then fire away in the comments! They will be incredibly welcome!
> 
> Much love and as always any kudos, comments of constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!


End file.
